Geekily wonderful. Via.

Dunno, but he likes to whine. Moral of this story? Don’t mess with smart intertubians. Main Via. Via. Via.

Granted, Patrick’s statement isn’t as bad as Booker’s, but jeez, this is just getting silly. My grandmother used to say, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”. Maybe we need a revised version of that, something along the lines of, “If you can’t say something that won’t hurt President Obama’s chances in 2012, don’t say anything at all”. Via.

Those diamonds don’t pay for themselves people! What are they going to do now?

(Reuters) – ATLANTA – When he entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination in May 2011, Newt Gingrich was the prosperous head of a small empire commonly known as Newt Inc, which included both for-profit consultancies and nonprofit foundations.

Altogether, these entwined ventures pulled in more than $110 million over the past decade. Now the vestiges of this empire are mired in debt, as is Gingrich’s campaign fund.

A bankruptcy proceeding under way in Atlanta will determine whether the one company still owned by Callista Gingrich, Gingrich Productions, will lose an expected payout that now constitutes the bulk of the Gingriches’ net worth.

The bankrupt corporation is the Center for Health Transformation, whose revenues came from the hefty dues paid by corporations for assistance in formulating and promoting certain healthcare policies.

“I AM NOT A LOBBYIST!”

So basically he’s not backing off, just being less harsh about it ’cause he’s probably getting flack from the national R’s. Idjit.

After days of ridicule for launching a conspiracy theory-fueled investigation into Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett on Tuesday backed off his threat to keep the president off the ballot in November and apologized to his state.

“If I embarrassed the state, I apologize but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” Bennett said in an interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR. “He’ll be on the ballot as long as he fills out the same paperwork and does the same things that everybody else has.”

Bennett said he still intends to keep asking Hawaii for verification that Obama’s birth certificate is authentic. But he said he only plans to use Hawaii’s answer as a way to satisfy demands from constituents who remain unconvinced Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States and so therefore eligible to be president.

Mark those calendars, order the Jiffy Pop® Via Politico.

Viewers will get the chance to experience the life of one of America’s most famous young mothers, Bristol Palin, in the all new docuseries, Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp, premiering Tuesday, June 19, at 10pm ET/PT with back-to-back episodes. Two new episodes will subsequently air every Tuesday, showcasing Bristol’s journey growing into womanhood with her young son, Tripp.

With never-before-granted access to Bristol’s real-life experiences, the show follows her everyday life as a single mother living under intense media scrutiny that comes from her lineage as the daughter of former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The series follows Bristol’s move from Wasilla to Los Angeles with Tripp and her sister Willow, and back to Alaska as she deals with parenting and disciplining her toddler without Tripp’s father. Giving viewers a unique look at the difficult decisions she has to make for her relationships, career and family, Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp will capture how these true-to-life challenges test her resolve as she single-handedly writes the next chapter in her and Tripp’s life.

The latest tidbits from our Blog Father, Cliff Schecter. Please read the rest of this great piece here.

Washington, DC - Last week we witnessed the capo di tutti capi of political and policy evolution. President Barack Obama, after Vice-President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan played the role of his social-issue Shofar, came out in favour of the equality of marriage for all in the US, regardless of sexual orientation. To put it in simple terms: for the first time in the history of this country, the president of the United States supports gay marriage.

This is obviously a big moment. For those seeking to enter loving relationships recognised by law, nothing has changed in that realm. But culturally, when the president or other major political figures make strong statements on issues, it changes everything. To quote Republican House Leader Shelley Runyon in the film The Contender: “What I say, the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me.”

This rhetorical power is why a concomitant devolution by many in the Democratic Party, in protecting one of the two or three most important programs of the past century, the creation of social security, is so disturbing.

(snip)

When President Obama seems willing to talk about cutting social security, House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi refuses to rule it out and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer seems like a lion on the Serengeti eyeing a gazelle, this just sends a signal that it is OK for others to go even further – which bodes very badly for the future.

(snip)

Then there are ideas such as trimming the bloated, out-of-control defence budget, or allowing the US government to bulk negotiate for lower-priced prescription drugs for Medicare (like virtually every other post-industrial nation does) – or not imprisoning a larger share of our population, per capita, than Ming The Merciless.

Save billions on these wastes of funds and human potential, sprinkle some taxes on Kimye and poof. No deficit.  

Yup, I hate to ruin it for any adrenaline junkies reading this, but not only is there no deficit crisis, but there are myriad ways to cure any minor ills without defenestrating social security, a programme that protects the 99 per cent of us – or one that you could say is more streetcar than car elevator. Additionally, recent elections in France and Greece reminded their elites that austerity is not only completely unnecessary and economically ahistorical, but ridiculously unpopular. Even 76 per cent of self described Tea Partiers – or people who think Christian rock is cool and lipids are a food group – don’t want anyone touching their social security. Clear enough?

The United States has only two major parties, but nobody can make voters who are unenthusiastic trudge on over to their local polling place this November. Democrats need to stand up and protect social security, because it is the right thing to do, because there is simply no reason to cut it and because it shows strength politically (especially to those older voters who might not like the gay marriage decision). In other words, when it comes to social security: re-evolve already!

Cliff Schecter is an author, pundit and public relations strategist whose firm Libertas, LLC, handles media relations for political, corporate and non-profit clients.

Follow him on Twitter: @CliffSchecter

So, how’s that minority outreach going for you Republicans? Iowa sure is pumping out the crazy these days. Wonder if Stevie has had himself cloned, ’cause they’re all talking like him lately. Via American Bridge way of TP.

Hmm, economic confidence hits a new high, stock market is up and existing home sales are up. Wonder what kind of f’d up distraction the GOP is going to come up with now. Haven’t heard much on the teevee about this stuff either.

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for April showing an increase in sales with total home sales climbing 3.4% since March rising 10% above the level seen in April 2011.

rising 3.0% from March and 9.9% above the level seen in April 2011 while the median selling price increased 10.4% above the level seen in April 2011.

For some reason this really amuses me. Via MM,

Gallup:

Although Catholic leaders have protested the portion of the Affordable Care Act mandating that health insurance plans include payment for birth control, the average rank-and-file Catholic in the U.S. finds the use of birth control morally acceptable. Catholic leaders are no doubt aware that many of their parishioners use birth control, but these data underscore the divide between official church teaching and Catholics’ day-by-day behaviors.

Much more at the link.

Note to readers: I’m rushing around today and won’t be in much, so please be good to Paddy, and forgive the brevity of my posts.

As Paul Krugman points out, “Now is the time for the government to spend more, not less, until the private sector is ready to carry the economy forward again.”

President Obama is not doing that, as you can see below.

Market Watch has the story, I’ll provide the charts:

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress.

The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

Another right wing talking point down the drain.

Krugman also debunks another talking point: Romney’s business experience wouldn’t help him as president.

H/t: @JoeWo

Thank you, as always, to our pal, Andrew Kaczynski  over at BuzzFeed

Willard Romney, in 2002, while running for governor, was awfully proud of his work:

“Some of those companies weren’t successful. I wish I could bat 1000, I can’t, but I’m basically in the investors hall of fame.”

Yeah, darn, my “weren’t successful” companies can be such a bummer, especially when they make me look bad.

So what if I forced so many hard-working Americans out of their jobs so they’d have to scrounge around for their next dime?

Oh well! What’s a multi-millionaire to do? Just as long as I can afford that car elevator…

Willard is the very definition of Bain dead.

Adorable. Via.

Garry Trudeau, thank you for this story arc.  It means a lot to many of us.

Heh, I thought PBO was running the most nasty, negative campaign ever!!!!

In March 2004, as Massachusetts Senator John Kerry emerged as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, then-President George W. Bush was ready to strike, dropping $40 million on ads that mostly attacked his opponent on defense spending, terrorism and taxes.

(snip)

In the early stage of this year’s general election campaign, President Barack Obama and his allies are taking a different tack. They haven’t assailed presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney with the same intensity, spending $4.5 million to run ads in March, April and early May, one-ninth of Bush’s total during the same three-month period four years ago, according to New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, an advertising tracking firm.

While Obama intensified his ad campaign this month, the spots tout his record as president more than they attack Romney, the data shows.

“You don’t have anywhere near the scope of activity in advertising that you had at this point in 2004,” even when super-political action committees are considered in the count, Anthony Corrado, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, said in a telephone interview.

Yep, unbelievable, incredible, just beyond imagination!!! Via MM.

You know one of the wingiest of the wingers is going to get this to try and clone themselves their own FrankenRon. ::shiver:: It’s up to about $11,000 right now.

Thirty-one years after Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly killed by a would-be assassin, an online auction house on the island of Guernsey (an autonomous British protectorate and controversial tax haven just off the northern coast of France) is making available to the highest bidder a glass vial it says once held the president’s blood.

Sixty-nine days after being sworn in, Reagan was attacked outside a Hilton Hotel in Washington by John Hinckley, Jr., a schizophrenic young man who later said he was trying to impress the actress Jodie Foster. The Secret Service rushed the president to George Washington University Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. Despite significant internal injuries and bleeding, Reagan recovered and was back at work at the White House only weeks later.

(snip)

Now fans can put in a bid for a 5-inch long, plasma-stained glass tube and an accompanying medical form listing Reagan’s patient identification number, age, sex, and the name of the hospital’s chief cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon. None of the boxes on the form indicating which tests should be done are ticked off, but instructions are written onto the page requesting the sample’s “lead level” be examined.

The anonymous seller provided online auctioneers with a “letter of provenance,” claiming that his mother, then a technician at Bio Science Laboratories in nearby Columbia, Md., was given permission by a supervisor to take the vial home at the end of the week Reagan was shot. When his parents died, the seller writes, the vial was passed on to him.

Where are all those pundits that were going on about the election depending on how people “feel” the summer before the election now? Looks to me like people are “feeling” pretty upbeat.

PRINCETON, NJ — The Gallup Economic Confidence Index broke through a barrier last week, surpassing -17 for the first time in the four-plus years of Gallup Daily tracking in the United States. The index now stands at -16 for the week ending May 20, up from -18 in each of the prior two weeks in May, and from -21 in late April.

(snip)

Notably, Americans’ economic outlook is nearly the most positive Gallup has found since January 2008, and the current conditions component is the highest since September 2008. This is despite the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s losing more than 900 points in May by the end of last week’s polling, including a roughly 450-point decline last week alone.

Confidence improved last week among members of all three major political groups. Additionally, Democrats’ and independents’ confidence levels tied or set a record high for the 2008 to 2012 period. Independents’ -17 index score is up from -22 the previous week and bests their previous high of -20 in January 2011. Democrats’ +14 score ties their record high from early May. By contrast, Republicans’ confidence — at -42 — has been as high or higher in recent weeks.